Crematories are known facilities designed to incinerate or cremate human and animal remains. Conventional crematory have a main crematory chamber with a loading door to load human or animal remains into the main crematory chamber which is heated by a hearth that generates and maintains sufficiently elevated temperatures to cremate human remains placed within the main crematory chamber. Conventional crematories contain both refractory surfaces and metal surfaces. The walls and ceiling (also known as a “crown”) composed of refractory bricks or the like. The remains are incinerated on a metal floor with or without an accessory container to capture the ashes. A stream of air is provided within the main crematory chamber to insure combustion.
Examples of traditional crematories involve the following examples. U.S. Pat. No. 1,742,868 teaches a crematory which has as an object to provide a furnace which can be charged with the remains to be cremated through one wall in the presence of the observers, after which the chagrining opening is closed. All operating process are located in and associated with another wall to hide the operation from onlookers. U.S. Pat. No. 3,874,310 teaches a crematory oven which consists of brickwork built up within and held together by a steel structure which includes end walls provided with doors and a steel floor. The oven is gas or oil fired and combustion supporting air is introduced through various ducts to ensure complete incineration of the coffin and body.
An unfortunate drawback of conventional crematoriums is that some remains are not fully consumed. Incomplete incineration results in mixed partially cremated remains and ashes. Furthermore, ash and soot build up on the interior surfaces of the crematorium resulting in uneven heat, and incomplete cremation. Various efforts to improve the completeness of incineration have been attempted. These efforts may result in elevated costs due to the time/fuel required for the most complete incineration possible, while others result in mixing partially incinerated remains together for further incineration.
Additional chambers for incineration of partially incinerated remains are provided in some designs. U.S. Pat. No. 4,321,878 teaches a secondary hearth crematory which has a primary cremation chamber and a second cremation chamber adjacent to and in communication with the first chamber so that the remains are partially incinerated in the first chamber, and then incinerated further in the second chamber (along with other remains) while new remains are in the first chamber. This feature was considered desirable to address a long standing problem with incomplete cremation due to the difficulty in maintaining a proper temperature range across an entire cremation chamber.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,403 covers an auxiliary incinerator apparatus which has primary and secondary chambers formed with refractory walls and a main door into the primary chamber in which an auxiliary incinerator apparatus is attached to provide another incinerator chamber for partially incinerated material so that the partially incinerated material may be moved to the auxiliary chamber for further incineration.
Other efforts attempt to improve combustion. U.S. Pat. No. 6,474,251, for example, teaches a cremating method and cremator which uses an apparatus to create turbulence in the injecting air necessary for combustion in order to increase the efficiency of the cremation.
Regrettably, even with these efforts, not all of the remains are completely cremated leaving a need for more efficient crematory apparatus. Adversely, it is desirable to reduce the time of cremation and the energy usage to operate crematory units. It is desirable to increase efficiency of cremation by decreasing the costs while simultaneously limiting partially incinerated remains.